I’m leaving Patheos in the near future. I’m working on a book and a separate large project (Senior Adventure Quest)—not to mention my full-time JOB—and though I have no shortage of ideas for posts, I’m having real trouble finding time to devote to blogging. Many other bloggers have made the jump to blogging as a business, and can afford to do it. If you have enough posts—several a day—and you get enough reader hits, you can actually get paid for… Read more

I found these Medium listicles today, and they are well worth reading, if you have the time. The point of the weekly lists is to … well, to cut through the overflow of information and to keep you from normalizing all this stuff in your head. The hazard in the early stages of every authoritarian process is that we humans are 1) generally too busy to pay attention to all that’s happening, and 2) damned adaptable. Adaptability is normally one… Read more

[ Continued from Part 2 ] Postscript I: The Bargain You probably never consciously think about The Bargain. And it’s written into no law I know of. But it’s there, and you sort of know it. It’s that bargain we all make with the Powers That Be. Society around us is actually a complex web of agreements and compromises – and repercussions. For instance, part of my deal with the neighbors is that I will not start up my Harley… Read more

[ Continued from Part 1 ] 11. Be the Better You: Recognize your strengths Recognize your own huge strengths. Look, you’re one of the most intelligent, most creative, most powerful and dangerous animals on this planet. Act like it! You and the people you choose to work with can come up with ideas and goals, you can work to make them happen. You can come up with crazy guerilla actions that spark the minds and hearts of every person in… Read more

I’ve been seeing the lists other people are making of things to do after this election. Taking nothing away from them, here’s MY list of things to do. This is the first 10. (Fair warning: I’m going to use the F-word, and more than once, in this post. I think this is a moment for it.) 1. Accept what’s happened Hillary Clinton isn’t the President. It’s unfair, it’s criminal, it’s ugly, but it’s also this: >> OVER <<< It’s done…. Read more

At this point in American history, the Democratic Party is a lot like a henpecked husband. Kicked out of the house, he stands on the sidewalk with his meager possessions strewn around him, wondering what just happened, and why. Meanwhile, the GOP is the spiteful wife, eagerly, viciously, turning the kids against him, telling anyone who will listen what a miserable bastard he is, and planning how to take for herself the house, the car, everything they once owned together…. Read more

I’m not a big fan of that pro-military, jingoistic “Support the troops” and “Freedom isn’t free” crap, mainly because it compresses a very complex situation down to a simplistic slogan, with an added “with us or against us” flavor. When I visit Washington DC, I’m always impressed with how MANY memorials there are glorifying war, how few there are — zero — glorifying peace. Also, in counterpoint to the two national holidays we have honoring soldiers, I’ve suggested a national… Read more

President Trump, with A GOP Senate and House, in Washington DC. Yes, I’m joking about the game of Clue, and what looks like the murder of America. I suppose I should feel worse, but … I already think civilization is coming to an end. I thought it would be in about 2030, but it looks like things are speeding up. One wonders if those women who ask the police for protection from abusive husbands feel one small moment of satisfaction… Read more

Daniel Franklin Farris, b. March 22, 1934, d. Nov. 6, 2011 I’m writing a piece for American Atheist with the working title “The Idea of Souls,” in which I look into some of the civilization-wide cost of believing in ensoulment. The writing of it coincides with the 5-years-ago-today death of my surrogate Dad. What follows is a feelings-level reaction to dealing with that anniversary. This is an atheist — me — grappling with the death of a loved one. Nothing… Read more